The problems in learning English intonation of 11th form students at Phan Dinh Phung High school = Những vấn đề trong việc học ngữ điệu tiếng Anh của học sinh l

Vietnam National University, Hanoi
University of Languages and International Study
Faculty of Post-graduate Studies




DƯƠNG LAN HƯƠNG



The PROBLEMS IN LEARNING ENGLISH INTONATION
OF 11
TH
FORM STUDENTS at Phan Dinh Phung high
school
(NHỮNG VẤN ĐỀ TRONG VIỆC HỌC NGỮ ĐIỆU TIẾNG ANH CỦA HỌC
SINH LỚP 11 TẠI TRƯỜNG PTTH PHAN ĐÌNH PHÙNG)


M.A. Minor Programme Thesis




Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 601410

Hanoi, 2010
Vietnam National University, Hanoi
University of Languages and International Study
Faculty of Post-graduate Studies




DƯƠNG LAN HƯƠNG



The PROBLEMS IN LEARNING ENGLISH INTONATION
OF 11
TH
FORM STUDENTS at Phan Dinh Phung high
school
(NHỮNG VẤN ĐỀ TRONG VIỆC HỌC NGỮ ĐIỆU TIẾNG ANH CỦA HỌC
SINH LỚP 11 TẠI TRƯỜNG PTTH PHAN ĐÌNH PHÙNG)


M.A. Minor Programme Thesis



Field: English Teaching Methodology
Code: 601410
Supervisor: Dr. Hà Cẩm Tâm

iv


Table of Content

Page
Certificate of originality
i
Acknowledgement
ii
Abstract
iii
Table of Contents
iv
List of tables and diagrams
vii
Part A: Introduction
1
1. Rationale
1
2. Aims of the study
2
3. Scope of the study
2
4. Research methodology
2
5. Research question

2
6. Organization of the study
3
Part B: Development
4
Chapter 1: Literature review
4
1.1. Definition of intonation
4
1.2. Pitch
5
1.3. Stress
6
1.3.1. Word stress
6
1.3.2. The nature of stress
6
1.3.3. Primary stress, secondary stress and unstressed
7
1.3. 4. Tonic stress
9
1.4. Rhythm
10

v
1.4.1. The contrast between stressed and unstressed syllables
10
1.4.2. The timing pattern
11
1.4.3. Level of rhythm

11
1.4.3.1. Word rhythm
11
1.4.3.2. Sentence rhythm
12
1.5. Tone unit
13
1.6. Intonation patterns
14
1.6.1. The falling tune- the glide down
14
1.6.2. The first rising tune – the glide up
15
1.6.3. The second rising tune – The take off
16
1.6.4. The falling rising tune – the dive
16
Chapter 2: the study
18
2.1. Research question
18
2.2. Design of the study
18
2.2.1. Participants
18
2.2.2. Data collection instrument
19
2.2.2.1. Listening test
20
2.2.2.2. Practice test

21
2.2.3. Data collection procedures
23
2.2.4. Analytical framework
23
2.3. Data Analysis and discussion
24
2.3.1. Analysis of test results
24
2.3.1.1. Listening test result
24
2.3.1.2. Practice test result
27
2.3.2. Discussion and findings
31
Part C: Conclusion
34
1. Major findings
34

vi
2. Implications
35
3. Limitations
36
4. Recommendations for further study
37
References
38
Appendices

I
Appendix 1: Listening and Practice Tests
I
Appendix 2: Keys to Listening and Practice Test
III
Appendix 3: Diagrams
V


















vii
List of table and diagram

Table 1: The glide down usages
Table 2: The glide up usages

Table 3: The take off usages
Table 4: The dive usages
Table 5: Results of the listening test
Table 6: The students’ performance of utterance “The London train?”
Table 7: The result of the two pronunciation test
Diagram 1: Spectrogram of model voice analyzing of “The London Train?”
Diagram 2: The eighth student’s performance of “The London train?”
Diagram 3: The tenth student’s performance of “The London train?”
Diagram 4: The sixth student’s performance of “The London train?”
Diagram 5: The seventh student’s performance of “The London train?”
Diagram 6: The first student’s performance of “The London train?”
Diagram 7: The third student’s performance of “The London train?”
Diagram 8: The second student’s performance of “The London train?”
Diagram 9: The forth student’s performance of “The London train?”
Diagram 10: The fifth student’s performance of “The London train?”
Diagram 11: The ninth student’s performance of “The London train?”
Diagram 12: The spectrogram of model voice of “Did you enjoy your meal?
Diagram 13: The Tenth student’s performance of “Did you enjoy your meal?”
Chart 1: Correct answers in the listening test

1
Part A: Introduction
1. Rationale
English is undoubtedly considered a golden key to open the door to such fields as
commerce, science and technology throughout the world. Therefore, it is necessary to teach
this language in educational establishments of all levels.
One of the most important purposes of learning English is to communicate with other
people especially native speakers while communication is mainly based on speaking in
which intonation is an important aspect. Therefore, how to speak English smoothly and
fluently with an accurate intonation is essential to any learners of English including

Vietnamese learners.
By nature, there exist certain differences between English and Vietnamese in terms of
pronunciation such as differences in consonants, vowels, stress and so on. In conducting
this research, the researcher aims to focus on differences between two languages in one
aspect of pronunciation called intonation. Due to intonation distinction, Vietnamese
learners of English find it difficult to master the target language. While English is the
language of intonation, in which the changes of pitch within an utterance may result in
different messages conveyed; Vietnamese is the language of tone in which the change of
pitch within a word or syllable leads to different words. This difference between two
languages will be described more clearly in the next chapter.
However, during the course of the research‟s study and teaching practice, it is found that
little or even no attention is paid to the teaching and learning of pronunciation. In addition,
among many aspects of pronunciation, intonation is often neglected in English teaching at
primary and secondary schools. Students are taught about this issue when they are in
university or college; so many of them find it difficult to realize and to pronounce an
utterance with accurate intonation. As a result, their English does not sound native-like.
Similarly, students always have troubles in listening and understanding native speakers.
This leads to the fact that a lot of them feel shy and unconfident in speaking English.

2
This research is carried out in order to study errors students make with one kind of
intonation pattern called the glide up. The research is based on the 11
th
form textbook of
English, which are being taught for students in Phan Dinh Phung High School, Hanoi and
Lifeline – pre-intermediate, a very popular textbook for Vietnamese learners now.
2. Aim of the study
This thesis aims to find out common errors of the11
th
form students in realizing and

pronouncing the glide up. Basing on those findings from the investigation, implications for
teachers of English to help their students overcome their mistakes will be given.
3. Scope of the study
The theory of English intonation is very complicated with various components and
linguistic points of views. Within the scope of this research, the focus is put on one kind of
intonation pattern – the glide up which is introduced in the textbook for high school
learners. By this way, the thesis desires to achieve a specific result about how the glide up
is realized in students‟ communication.
4. Research methodology
Data collection methods used in this study include calculating percentage of correct
answers in the listening test, recording the students‟ voices in two short dialogues adapted
from Lifeline preintermediate textbook. Details of methodology applied in the study are
discussed in part B, chapter 2.
5. Research question
The main purpose of the study is to investigate the students‟ competence in recognizing
and producing the glide up intonation pattern. To achieve this objective, the study seeks the
answers to the following questions:
1. What problems do the 11
th
form students have in using English glide-up?
6. Organization of the study
To achieve the aims of the study, this paper is divided into three parts. They are
INTRODUCTION, DEVELOPMENT and CONCLUSION.

3
INTRODUCTION includes the rationale, the aims, the scope, the methods and the
organization of the study.
DEVELOPMENT, the most significant part of the study, consists of two chapters.
Chapter 1 provides theoretical background knowledge of the studied issue touched upon in
the research. There are four sub parts in this chapter. Firstly, the definition of intonation is

presented; secondly, discussion of all other issue related to intonation is followed. Thirdly,
the basic unit of intonation called the tone unit is discussed. Lastly, kinds of intonation
patterns are introduced.
Chapter II covers methodology applied in the study. The research question comes first,
followed by an introduction to the subjects of the research, the data instruments and the
procedures and methodology used for data collection. In this chapter, the discussion and
interpretation of the collected data is given to find out errors made by the subjects of the
research in producing the glide up based on an analysis of their performance in the listening
and pronunciation tests.
CONCLUSION is the summary of major findings of the research, followed by implications
and suggestions for teachers of English. Limitation of the study and suggestions for further
study are also included in the chapter.








4
PART B: DEVELOPMENT
Chapter I: Literature review
In this chapter, some theoretical background of intonation is included. However, there are
many different views about the concept of intonation from linguists; the author of the
research presents the matters related to the topic touched upon in this thesis. This chapter
consists of six sub-parts: section 1.1 revises definition of intonation, section 1.2 introduces
pitch, stress is introduced in the section 1.3, followed by rhythm in section 1.4 and tone
unit in the section 1.5 and finally, section 1.6 deals with different intonation patterns in
English.

1.1. Definition of intonation
Intonation aspect was not paid as much attention to as other aspects of pronunciation such
as consonants, vowels and word stress. Intonation was only studied with more attention
with broadness of the study of discourse. However, this issue has been increasingly paid
greater emphasis. Thus, this part is devoted to provide some overall knowledge about this
issue to help readers understand it more easily. According to Roach (1990:260), “No
definition of intonation is completely satisfactory”. He also states “but any attempt at a
definition must recognize that the pitch of the voice plays the most important part”.
Another author who defines the term intonation in relation with pitch is Brazil. According
to Brazil (1997:1), “intonation is traditionally equated with variations in the perceived pitch
of the speaking voice”. According to O‟Connor (1967), generally intonation is often
defined in relation with tune of voice. He states “every language has melody; no language
is spoken on the same musical note all the time” (1967:108). He also claims that voice can
go up and down and combination of different notes of the voice makes tunes. It is clear that
tune plays an important role in understanding the concept of intonation. Furthermore,
O‟Connor (1967) also clearly describes difference between two kinds of languages namely
intonation and tone languages. He states, “In some languages, tunes mainly belong to the
word, being part of its shape”. Accordingly, a sound uttered with different tunes may result
in different words, for instance, in the language of Vietnamese as follows: “tôi” means “I”,
“tối” means “dark”, “tội” means “crime” and “tồi” means “bad‟. Therefore, Vietnamese is

5
called tone language, and there are many other similar languages such as Chinese, Thai. On
the contrary, English is a different case of language, tune in English still plays an important
part but in a more complicated way. Tune cannot change a word‟s meaning, but it can add
something to the word such as speaker‟s feeling or attitude.
In summary, intonation is regarded as melodic patterns or tunes added on to the consonants
and vowels of an utterance. With different tunes, a word can have more meaning than
itself. A very simple example of intonation by O‟Connor will help to make clearer
understanding of definition of English intonation. The word “thank you” in English is often

said in one of the two following ways. In each way, “thank you” is produced with different
attitudes of the speaker. In the first way, the voice draws from high to low and this shows a
real gratitude from speaker. In the second case, the voice rises from low to high, thus this
shows a rather casual acknowledgement of something not very important i.e. the case when
a teacher acknowledges his/her students‟ response in checking attendance. This is the way
intonation shows its important role in spoken language.
1. 2. Pitch
It is stated that English intonation is largely a matter of pitch: speech can be produced with
very little variation in pitch, even in a monotone; however, no speaker can utter English
word without any pitch at all. Thus, pitch is not a kind of optional extra but an integral part
of the nature of spoken English. The combination of different pitches creates an intonation
curve, which conveys something from speaker. The following example will clearly
illustrate important role of pitch in producing intonation.
(1) He‟s ready.
(2) He‟s ready?
In the first utterance, the falling intonation starts with the unstressed syllable /hiz/ at a low
pitch, then stress is put on the syllable /re/ at a high pitch before the intonation falls and
ends at the unstressed syllable /di/ at a quite low pitch. The utterance with falling intonation
in the first case expresses something complete and definite. Thus, the first utterance is
called a statement. In the second utterance, unstressed and stressed syllable are treated in a
similar manner with those in the first utterance; however, the voice rises rather than falling
like in the first case. The rising intonation begins with the stressed syllable /re/ at a high

6
pitch and ends at the unstressed syllable /di/ at a very high pitch. Therefore, the second is
called a question.
1.3. Stress
1.3.1. Word stress
Along with pitch, word stress is also mentioned as another important concept which is
necessary to consider in the analysis of intonation. In the language of English, there are

many multiple-syllable words, which consist of more than one stressed syllable. If the
speaker cannot define the stressed syllable, he may make listener misunderstand or even
understand nothing. Thus, word stress is an important issue in spoken language as well as
in studying intonation because both of them have close relation. Moreover, word stress is
considered the origin of the study of intonation. With these reasons, the following section
focuses on an introduction to word stress and its relation with intonation.
1.3.2. The nature of stress
Stress is one of the notions that are mentioned in most of phonetics and phonology works
by linguists. The nature of stress is “simple enough” according to Roach (1990:166). He
states that everyone agrees that in words like “father, open, camera” the first syllable is
stressed, the middle syllable is stressed in words such as “potato, apartment” and that
words like “about, perhaps” have final syllable which is stressed. All stressed syllables
have one characteristic in common called prominence. Syllables are realized as stressed
because they are more prominent than unstressed syllables Roach states four factors which
are important in identifying whether a syllable is more prominent than the others including
loudness, length, pitch, and quality.
Loudness: Most people seem to feel that stressed syllables are louder than unstressed; in
other words, loudness is a component of prominence. In a sequence of identical syllables
like ba:ba:ba:ba:ba:, if one syllable is made louder than the others, it will be heard as
stressed. However, it is important to realize that it is very difficult for a speaker to make a
syllable louder without changing other characteristics of the syllable, if one literally
changes only the loudness, the perceptual effect is not very strong.

7
Length: The length of syllable has an important part to play in prominence. If one of the
syllables in our “nonsense word” ba:ba:ba:ba:ba: is made longer than the others, there is
quite a strong tendency for that syllable to be heard as stressed
Pitch: Every syllable is said on some pitch, pitch in speech is closely related to the
frequency of vibration of the vocal folds and to the musical notion of low- and high-pitched
notes. It is essentially a perceptual characteristic of speech. If one syllable of our “nonsense

words” is said with pitch that is noticeably different from that of the other, this will have a
strong tendency to produce the effect of prominence. For example, if all syllables are said
with low pitch except for one said with high pitch, then the high-pitched syllable will be
heard as stressed and the others as unstressed. To place some movement of pitch as rising
or falling on a syllable is even more effective
Quality: A syllable will tend to be prominent if it contains a vowel that is different in
quality from neighboring vowels. If we change one of the vowels in our “nonsense words”
like ba:bi:ba:ba:, the “odd” syllable bi: will tend to be heard as stressed. This effect is
neither very powerful nor very important, but there is one particular way in which it is
relevant in English. We can look on stressed syllables as occurring against a “background”
of these weak syllables, so that their prominence is increased by contrast with these
background qualities
When a syllable is pronounced louder or longer than the others, it will be felt as more
prominent. In addition, if any syllable is produced with higher pitch of voice, it is
considered more prominent. Other way of making one syllable to be more prominent is that
when “it contains a vowel that is different in quality from neighboring vowels” (Roach,
1990:168).
In summary, prominence is produced by four main factors: loudness, length, pitch and
quality. Generally, these factors work together in combination though syllables may
sometimes be made prominent by means of only one or two of them. Experimental work
has shown that these factors are not equally important: the strongest effect is produced by
pitch, and length is also a powerful factor. Loudness and quality have much less effect
1.3.3. Primary stress, secondary stress and unstressed

8
The stress placement by a speaker in a sentence gives the listener information about the
relative importance of the different parts of the message or conveys specific meanings,
either for intensity or contrast or both of them. For example, if there is no special emphasis
on any words, these following sentences are stressed following the previous rules:
He didn‟t mean to go. /hі: „dɪdnt „mі:n tə „gəʊ/

I can‟t find anything. / ɑɪ „kɑ:nt „fɑɪnd „εnɪðɪη/
Jones(1972) provides a very trustworthy account of the emphasis for intensity and for
contrast. The meaning of a sentence or words can be intensified by adding extra
prominence to the strongly stressed syllables or sometimes to a syllable which normally has
weak stress. For instance, the sentence:
He has a magnificent house.
Without any special emphasis, it will be said:
/ hi: həz ə mæg‟nɪfɪ∫ənt „hɑʊs/
but to intensify the meaning of “magnificent”, we can put an extra strong stress on the
second syllable /‟mæg‟nɪfɪ∫ənt/.
People also use stress as a useful tool to contrast information in their utterances. The
emphasis for contrast can be produced by strengthening the stress degree of emphatic
syllables which can be ordinarily less stressed than other syllables or reducing the stress on
other syllables in the utterance. The most common contrast in English is of old and new
information.
To answer these two following questions, the sentence
This is my ticket. / „ðɪs ɪz „mɑɪ „ti:kɪt/
can be pronounced in different ways:
1. Which is your ticket, this or that? / „wit∫ iz jɔ: „ti:kɪt, „ðiz „ðʌ t /
2. Is this his ticket? / ɪz ‟ðɪs „hiz „ti:kɪt/
Roach states that there was a simple distinction between “stressed” and “unstressed”
syllables with no intermediate levels, such a treatment would be a two-level analysis of
stress. Usually, however, we have to recognize one or more intermediate levels. It should
be remembered that here we are dealing only with stress within the word. This means that

9
we are looking at words as they are said in isolation, which is a rather artificial situation-we
do not often say words in isolation, except for a few such as “ yes, no, possibly, please” and
interrogative words such as “what, who…ect” but looking at words in isolation does not
help us to see stress placement and stress levels more clearly than studying them in the

context of continuous speech.
By looking at the word “around” can we see where the stress always falls clearly on the last
syllable and the first syllable is weak. From the point of view of stress, the most important
fact about the way we pronounce this word is that on the second syllable the pitch of the
voice does not remain level, but usually falls from a higher to a lower pitch. We might
diagram the pitch movement as shown below, where the two parallel lines represent the
speaker‟s high and low pitch level:


The prominence that results from this pitch movement, or tone, gives the strongest type of
stress, this is called primary stress.
In some word, we can observe a type of stress that is weaker than primary stress but
stronger than that of the first syllable of “around”, for example, in the first syllables of the
words “photographic” or “anthropology”. The stress in these words is called secondary
stress. It is sometimes represented in transcription with a low mark.
We have now identified two levels of stress: primary and secondary, as well as a third level
which can be called unstressed and regarded as being the absence of any recognizable
amount of prominence. These are the three levels that we will use in describing English
stress. It is worth noting that unstressed syllables containing ʊ, ɔ, i or a syllabic consonant
will sound less prominent than an unstressed syllable containing some other vowel. .
1.3.4. Tonic stress
In each tone unit, there might be more than one word which are marked stress, thus the
most emphasis is put on the syllable which is treated as tonic stress by speaker. Tonic stress
refers to the syllable in a word which receives the most stress in a tone unit. Hereafter are

10
some examples of intonation units with the tonic stress bolded cited from

(1)He's waiting
(2)He's waiting for his friend

(3)He's waiting for his friend at the station.
In the first sentence, the speaker emphasizes on action waiting, therefore, “wait” is
considered tonic stress. In the second utterance, “wait” still carries stress however; “friend”
is more prominent because it is considered tonic stress by the speaker. Similarly, when
pronouncing the third utterance, the speaker focus on place, “sta” is the tonic stress. In this
utterance, “wait” and “friend” are still stressed. Identifying tonic stress is very important
because when speaker shifts tonic stress it means that his emphasis is changed.
1.4. Rhythm
Human life possesses the abundance of rhythm in numerous activities and aspects. In
general sense, the concept of “rhythm”, as defined in the Oxford Dictionary, means “a
strong, regular repeated pattern of movement or sound”. It can be realized in the tick-tock
sounds of the clock, the continuous repetition of heart- beat or the alternation between
sunset and sunrise in the orbit of the Sun… Among them, the language of English is also
claimed to be rhythmic and in this case, it is the rhythm of speech.
The unit of rhythm is stated most properly by O‟Connor (Better English pronunciation,
1967: 99) “a rhythm unit is a unit with a stressed syllable at its centre and any unstressed
syllables which may come before and after it.” He distinguishes between the rhythm group
and the stress group, which is formed with a stressed syllable and any unstressed syllables
which may follow it.
As defined above, the rhythm of speech in English, which is produced by the occurrence of
stress in regular intervals, therefore, is made up of these two main factors: the contrast
between the stressed and unstressed elements and the timing pattern of the syllables.
1.4.1. The contrast between stressed and unstressed syllables
The contrast between the stressed syllables and unstressed syllables, which has been
becoming the center of recent teaching pronunciation approaches, is based on the theory of
“figure and background”(Dalton and Seidlhofer, 2000). The idea of “foreground and back

11
ground” in the language of English is manifested by the alternation of stressed and
unstressed syllables, in which stressed syllables play the roles of the foreground and the

latter do the background. In effect, it‟s is nearly impossible to define immediately where
the stress is in a word or in a sentence due to the fact that there is no rule of position of
stress. The signaling factors that differentiate the stressed items and unstressed ones lie in
the clarity, the duration and pitch changes of a certain syllable. Sometimes, these
components all are said to produce the loudness of the stressed syllables in comparison to
the others in the utterance. These syllables, therefore, require a greater amount of muscular
energy than the unstressed fellows. In speaking English, the continual occurrence of
syllables, altering between stressed and unstressed ones turns the utterance into a chain of
strong and weak beats with a rhythmic sound.
1.4.2. The timing pattern
This is a key factor of rhythm of speech in all languages because rhythm, actually, is timing
pattern among syllables. The classic theory of rhythm divides languages into two categories
in terms of rhythm, the stress-timed language and the syllable-timed language. English is a
typical single of stress-timed language, where the stressed syllables tend to occur at similar
period of time whether they are separated by unstressed syllables or not. That is, the time
between two continuous stressed syllables will not change regardless of how many
unstressed syllables appear between them and as a result, the unstressed syllables have to
be reduced to fit the fixed intervals of stressed elements. In the mean time, there are few
languages where all syllables, both stressed and unstressed elements, happen at the same
time- intervals. In fact, this way of classification is opposed strongly by phoneticians whose
mother tongue happens to fall on the second group and are mostly used by English-
speaking phoneticians to distinguish English with other languages which are not stress-
timed.
1.4.3. Level of rhythm
In the research, the rhythm was analyzed at two degrees: word rhythm and sentence
rhythm.
1.4.3.1. Word rhythm
The rhythm at the level of word can be identified as the word-stress pattern and often,
people tend to call it word stress instead of rhythm of word. Words in English are

12
composed of syllables which are classified into stressed and unstressed syllables.
According to Jones (1972:141), “syllables which are pronounced more forcibly than
neighboring syllables are generally said to be stressed, or more accurately strongly
stressed or pronounced with strong stress. Syllables which are pronounced without much
force are commonly called unstressed; it is more accurate to say that they are weakly
stressed or pronounced with weak stress, since they must have some degree of stress.”
Thus, a stressed syllable in a word is always clearer, louder, longer and higher pitched than
an unstressed syllable. Dalton and Seidlhofer (2000: 38) called this characteristic patterning
of these two kinds of syllables word-stress. Words which have the same stress pattern, as
the matter of fact, have the common rhythm and sound more like each other.
It is the most outstanding feature and also the cause of the greatest difficulty to foreign
learners of English that English word stress appears chaotic and “without rules”. Some
rules can be managed to draw out in quite a small scale of application and large amount of
exceptions. Therefore, the word stress or rhythm of words are claimed to be free. From
another point of view, the word stress is considered as fixed owing to the fact that every
English word has its own stress pattern which is an important part of its identity. The
mistakes in stressing a word, despite the perfectly pronounced individual sounds, can
damage the shape of an English word and cause difficulties for hearers in catching its
meaning.
1.4.3.2. Sentence rhythm
Beyond the degree of individual words, English rhythm of speech mainly works at the level
of sentences, or more accurately, utterances. On the surface of this level, there are some
aspects to be included in the scope of rhythm: firstly the stressed words versus the
unstressed words, secondly the weak form of words and last but not least, the pause and
principles of sense group and breathe group.
The alternation of stressed and unstressed syllables in a sentence, like in a word, is the
rhythm of this sentence. The occurrence of stressed items at regular periods of time
irrespective of the appearance of the unstressed syllables makes up the rhythmic structure
of the sentence. Therefore, defining the correct stress placement is the key to an appropriate

rhythm of the sentence while stressing improperly can spoils the meaning of the sentence

13
and easily lead to the misunderstanding, irrelevance and even the embarrassment and
unintentional offense.
1.5. Tone unit
According to Roach (1990), for analyzing intonation, a unit generally greater in size than
the syllable is needed, and this unit is called the tone unit. Because it is difficult to define
tone unit, some examples will be necessary for better understanding this notion. Initially, it
is true that in its smallest form the tone unit consists of only one syllable, for example
utterance “you”. A tone unit often comprises of more than one syllable. For example, “is it
you” is a three-syllable utterance in which the third syllable is more prominent than the
other two and carries a rising tone while the other two syllables are normally much less
prominent and said on a level pitch. The third syllable, which carries a tone, is called a
tonic syllable. It has a high degree of prominence; as prominence is a property of a stressed
syllable, the tonic syllable not only carries a tone but also a certain type of stress, which is
sometimes referred to as the tonic stress. Other linguists use the terms “nucleus” and
“nuclear stress” for tonic syllable or tonic stress. In this thesis, the author agrees with the
description of tone unit taken from English phonetics and phonology by Roach. So far,
only one component of tone unit has been introduced. Besides the tonic syllable, there are
other components such as head, pre-head and tail in a tone unit. In the following section,
the components of a tone unit will be presented. As Roach (1990) states, a tone unit is
composed of pre head, head, tonic syllable and tail as follows:
Tone unit = (PH) + (H) + (TS) + (T)
PH: Pre head
H: Head
TS: Tonic syllable
T: Tail (Roach, 1990:288)
The syllable that carries the tone is the tonic syllable as mentioned in at the beginning of
section 1.3.4. For instance, in answering the question “what would you like”, the listener

says “A dictionary”. Only the first syllable of the word “dictionary” is more prominent than
the other syllables. Thus, the first syllable is the tonic syllable. The second component of a

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tone unit according to Roach‟ structure is the head. He states that a head is defined as all
part of a tone unit that extends from the first stressed syllable up to (but not including) the
tonic syllable. Thus, if there is no stressed syllable before the tonic syllable, there cannot be
a head like in the case of “in an hour”. In this case, “in an” forms a pre-head which is
composed of all the unstressed syllables in a tone unit preceding the first stressed syllable.
Another component of a tone unit is the tail. The tail consists of any syllables between the
tonic syllable and the end of the tone unit. For instance, in the tone unit, “Both of them
were her” the tonic syllable is in initial part (both) and the rest is the tail.
1.6. Intonation patterns
According to O‟Connor (1967), there are four basic intonation patterns with twenty-four
usages. The following section, therefore, provides a brief summary of the four patterns with
their usage.
1.6.1. The falling tune- the glide down
In the glide-down, any stressed syllable at the beginning of tone unit is on a quite high
pitch, and then following stressed syllables are on lower pitch, intonation curve starts to fall
down at the tonic syllable. For example, the utterance “what was the matter with that?”
will be illustrated by O‟Connor as follows:

(O’Connor, 1967:112)

The glide down, according to O‟Connor (1967), is said to have five functions in conveying
speaker‟s idea. The glide down is used in the following contexts as summarized in the
table.

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Table 1: The glide down usages
When the statement are complete and
definite
I like it very much.

When Wh-questions sound more
business like and the speaker is only
interested in the subject not the person
spoken to
Why did you change your mind?

Short question used as responses
John‟s on holiday. Is he?

For strong commands
Take your feet off the chair.

For strong exclamations
Good heavens!

(O’Connor, 1967:120-125)
1.6.2. The first rising tune – the glide up
The glide up is described just like the falling tune except that it ends with a rise in the voice
instead of a fall. Thus, the utterance “Have you been at work today, John?” will be
presented as the following:



(O’Connor, 1967:115)

The glide up has five usages as in the following table.




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Table 2: The glide up usages
When the statement is intended as soothing or
encouraging
John‟ll be here soon.

When Wh questions show as much as interest
in the other person than in the subject.
When are you coming to see us?

For Yes – no question
Have you seen him yet?

For greeting and saying goodbye
Good morning!

For exclamations which refer to something not
very exciting or unexpected.
Thank you!

(O’Connor, 1967:120-125)
1.6.3. The second rising tune – The take off
The take off is similar to the glide down and glide up in that ends with a rise in the voice,
however, any syllables before the rise are low. This tune is called the take off because it
looks like the shape of an airplane taking off, starting by running along at a low level and

finally rising into the air.

(O’Connor, 1967:117)
The table below will illustrate five functions of take off.


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Table 3: The take off usages
If the statement is grumble
You can‟t possibly do that.

If both the statement and the tag question
have “not” in them or if “not” is missing
from both.
You like it, did you?

If the exclamation is questioning.
Really?

For repetition questions
When did you go?

For tag questions when the speaker does
not want to force the other person to
agree with him, but gives his opinion.
Come to tea with us, will you?

(O’Connor, 1967:120-125)
1.6.4. The falling rising tune – the dive
In this intonation pattern, intonation curve starts from tonic syllable at a very high pitch,

and then falling to lower pitch, finally rising and finishing at quite high pitch.
(O’Connor, 1967:118)
The dive has four usages as follows:





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Table 4: The dive usages
For statement which shows reservations
on the part of the speaker and which
might be followed by “but”, or by “you
must admit, I must admire”
I like your hat.

(I must admit)
If the statement is a correction of what
someone else has said
( I can‟t do it)
You can‟t do it that way.

If the statement is a warning.
You‟ll be late

If the statement has two parts, of which
the first is more important to meaning
than the second.
I went to London on Monday.

(O’Connor, 1967:120-125)